Popular Amusements

The Rev. Jonathan Townley Crane discusses the pros and cons (mostly cons) of various forms of recreation.

Dancing, theater, parties, billiards, horse-racing, chess, baseball--all can lead the unwary to sin. Reading novels is also dangerous, which his son, novelist Stephen Crane, appears to have ignored.

Crane's work originally appeared as a series of essays published in The Ladies' Repository, which were reprinted as a book. This ebook contains the text of the book, with three reactions which appeared in 1869 and 1870.